


At Liberty

by Trismegistus (Lebateleur)



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: Loyalty, M/M, Other goodies, Partners to Lovers, Trust Kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-15
Updated: 2017-04-15
Packaged: 2018-10-19 09:13:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,617
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10636818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/pseuds/Trismegistus
Summary: “I did not give thee leave to touch me,” said Cala.  “Or even to move.”A night shift spent in His Serenity's chambers leaves Beshelar tense and distracted.  Cala offers to help him unwind.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ExtraPenguin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ExtraPenguin/gifts).



Cala was stifling a yawn when Beshelar emerged from His Serenity's bedchamber. Around them the Alcethmeret was coming to life; he could hear the hum of the pneumatic tubes behind the walls and the precise footfalls of the Untheileneise Guard as the watch turned over in the corridor outside. He bit back a grimace of displeasure. It would not do for their seconds or, gods forbid, Nemis to observe the emperor's nohecharei showing any signs of fatigue. 

His irritation was not helped when Cala's gaze came to rest squarely upon him, pale eyes shrewd behind his spectacles. “What's toward?” he asked, ears tilted in concern although his voice was as mild as ever.

“Nothing,” he said shortly. “It is the end of our shift and we are merely tired.”

Cala's brows lifted, but he said nothing in reply, merely falling into step beside Beshelar as they made their way toward the mess hall. Although seperate from the facilities in which his Serenity's meals were prepared, the Alcethmeret maintained a large kitchen for the purpose of feeding all those whose services kept the court functioning. They filed in behind the crowd of guards, maids, and custodians making their way toward the long tables on which a small army of pages were placing bowls of steaming hot oatmeal, fruits, fresh bread, and cold meats. 

Beshelar nodded to a few of the guardsmen with whom he'd trained as a cadet and took his place across from Cala at the end of one table. They ate in silence, Cala forgoing as ever the slices of roast beef and ham in favor of the the fruits and grains. For his part, Beshelar piled his plate high with all of it. A soldier's habits died hard and besides, he was determined to forget himself in the act of eating. All the while he felt Cala's gaze upon him, even when Cala appeared to be looking elsewhere. He did not help matters by fumbling his mug of coffee and barking out an oath as the hot liquid seeped into his uniform. 

The others around them stilled, chatter cutting off mid-sentence and ears twitching warily. A moment later their conversations resumed with the false cheerfulness of people pretending they hadn't just witnessed someone making an embarrassment of himself. Cala handed him a napkin with an indeterminate murmur and a raised brow. Beshelar swore another oath, although this time in silence.

Mercifully, Cala waited until they had put the hall behind them before raising the matter. “We too do not find it easy to remain focused upon our duties when we know what occurs behind his Serenity's bed curtains.”

“It is our _job_ ,” he grated out, freshly ashamed that a trivial matter such as this could leave him so troubled. Ever tolerant of others' faults, Cala seemed willing to leave the matter there, but something compelled Beshelar to continue. “It is foolish, and we are ashamed to have reacted thus.” His ears were flicking in agitation, but he could not still them. “To dwell on such things is prurient.”

“But natural,” said Cala, “When one is confronted nightly with the sounds and smells of them.”

“Cala!” He choked. “They are our emperor and empress.” He drew them quickly down a side corridor, concerned lest someone overhear.

“They are also people, as are you and I, and such thoughts are common to all, no matter one's station.”

Beshelar snorted, and relented. “Be that as it may, His Serenity and his Zhasan may act upon them. They are married and moreover, it is their duty to secure the line of succession. They _must_ concern themselves with such things. Whereas we must not, for we chose this path so that we might be a credit to our family, because we had no interest in marrying for our house.”

Cala made a small, skeptical noise. “That is correct, strictly speaking. But there are nevertheless certain liberties traditionally afforded nohecharei. Past emperors have not faulted them for availing themselves thus, and we cannot believe anyone so tolerant as His Serenity would begrudge you any less.”

The conversation had become alarmingly frank, but to Beshelar's surprise it was a relief to finally speak of such things so openly. “We have on occasion resorted to the anonymity of the pleasure houses,” he admitted at last. “But we are unable to give ourselves over to the matter when we know what we do to be wrong. We have always found the experience unsatisfactory.

“Moreover,” he continued. “We have no wish for our licentiousness to become the grounds for _rumors_.” 

Cala's ears dipped, then righted. “When we spoke of the liberties afforded nohecharei, we meant to say that we suspect a lack of interest in marriage is not uncommon among those who serve thus. That indeed, we rather think that although it is not acknowledged, it a consideration in our selection.” 

He turned in surprise to find Cala regarding him evenly. “Forgive us,” Cala said, “but you have most likely inspired rumors already. We are surely not the only member of His Serenity's court to notice that it is not the female courtesans upon whom your eyes linger.” 

The tautness of Cala's shoulders belied his mild tone. A moment passed and when Beshelar did not protest this outrageous insinuation, he smiled wryly and continued. “We admit we did not imagine matters unfolding in quite such a perfunctory fashion, but we would be pleased if you would spend the evening in our company tonight, and on nights hereafter when release would be helpful.”

He inhaled sharply and choked. Cala drew back and Beshelar caught the telltale beginnings of his shudder, quickly repressed. “We are sorry,” Cala said. “When you mentioned wrongfulness and rumors we assumed you referred to a specific sort of licentious activity and misspoke—”

“No,” he said, lest Cala continue and compound the mire he had led them both unwittingly into. “We apologize. You did not misunderstand us; we have been subject to such improper desires from our youth. And we want, so badly, but...” 

Cala waited, twitching his ears repeatedly back into place as they sought to cock forward in question. Beshelar took a moment to consider how to best say what must be said. “I too have considered what it would be to spend a night with thee thus,” he admitted at last, dropping all pretense. “And I am honored that thou hast as well.”

But the informal tasted strange in his mouth and he found he could not continue to use it. “It is just that we have ever valued propriety and decorum, and we do not think we could set them aside, even for you.”

Cala was silent for long moments, head down as he gazed at some point on the floor before him. At last he seemed to come to some private conclusion and turned to Beshelar once more, jaw set decisively. “If it is merely a surfeit of control that prevents you, we would be happy to take the matter out of your hands entirely.”

Something turned over in Beshelar's stomach. He thought he had wanted badly before, but there was a promise of something within Cala's voice that made his pulse race. His mouth was suddenly dry. “We would like that very much,” he said.

His quarters were dark and cold when he unlocked the door, and for a time they busied themselves with all the tasks of returning to a home after two days' absence: storing cloaks and boots in the wardrobe, lighting the coals in the grate, drawing the curtains against the daylight. But eventually, everything that needed to be done had been, and Beshelar knew not what should follow next. He sat on the edge of the bed; a moment later Cala sat beside him.

Cala' hands rested calmly on the threadbare patches of robe over his knees; Beshelar's were knotted tightly in his lap. The sounds of a city in full morning bustle were audible beyond the windows, but Beshelar heard them only faintly. The hum of the blood in his own ears all but drowned out the costermonger's cries and the sounds of the carts passing over the cobbles.

“Well,” said Cala. “Shall we begin?”

He set his jaw and nodded. 

Cala rubbed his palms along his thighs, strangely businesslike, then said, “Look at me.” And then, when Beshelar did not turn, “Look at me.” If Beshelar had thought Captain Orthema's gaze when he removed the sun mask could be stern, Cala's was sterner yet. _This is a man who will command thee,_ he thought. _And thou wilt gladly obey._

It was a unsettling to find himself responding thus, and yet comforting as well, for he had trained his entire career to obey, and obeyed so well he'd been deemed worthy to take orders from the highest in the land. “Take off thy coat,” said Cala. “Slowly, so that I might watch thee.” 

And unbidden, his fingers obeyed, moving from button to button with a stiffness that belied the eagerness now welling within him. All the while he was conscious of Cala's gaze hot on his chest as the wool parted to reveal the plain white tunic beneath. Clumsily, he undid the final button, and the movement of his fingers stayed. 

“Thou mayst take it off,” said Cala. He nodded, aware of the flush spreading across his arms as his pulse sped. He folded the coat and set it carefully upon the mattress beside him. “Wish us to touch thee?” Cala asked softly. 

“Yes,” he breathed.

Cala regarded him for a moment. “No, not just yet,” he said, then leaned in and took Beshelar's mouth in his. Beshelar gasped and flinched from his lips. The next instant, Cala's hands were on his shoulders like vises. He laughed shakily, abashed, and laid his hands atop Cala's, awkward and unsure.

“I did not give thee leave to touch me,” said Cala. “Or even to move.” There was an edge to his voice that could have cut glass. “Take care thou dost not do either again without my leave.” He started to nod, caught himself, and said instead, “Yes.” 

Cala watched him for a time, his face a mask, and then leaned in and kissed him once more. This time Beshelar shut his eyes and let the discipline of the parade ground take over: arms held still, legs held still, ears held still. Cala's lip were warm, and pulled insistently at his until he sighed in appreciation and felt the slide of Cala's tongue between his teeth.

At its touch, the heat that had been building within him ignited into flame. He groaned and pressed himself toward Cala, hands clenched at his sides lest they move of their own accord to wrap around Cala's shoulders. His hunger seemed to draw forth Cala's own, for Cala's hands were gripped tightly around his arms, fingers tracing Beshelar's muscles through the fabric of his tunic. 

He was breathless by the time Cala drew back, and could not take his eyes from Cala's swollen lips, the way only the barest sliver of blue seemed to surround his pupils. “Thy shirt—remove it,” Cala demanded, and his voice was as rough as Beshelar had ever heard it. 

He did not hesitate to obey, drawing the garment over his head and dropping it to crumple on the floor, heedless of the wrinkles it would cause. Cala's eyes moved hungrily along his chest and he felt it as though it was Cala's fingers that touched him. Cala raised a hand, long and pale, and flicked a nail across Beshelar's nipple. The sensation sent electric shudders down his spine, and he jumped. 

“Stay still, or I will not do it again.” 

It was an impossible command; how could he stay still when just this one touch had sent sensation lancing throughout his body? But there was pure command in Cala's voice, and he knew if he did not heed it that Cala would withdraw entirely. And if Cala were to do that, and leave the need building within him unaddressed, he did not think he could bear it.

“Yes,” he said. Then Cala's fingers were everywhere on his heated skin, trailing more fire in their wake while he moaned and clenched his hands at his side and tried desperately not to move. When Cala's fingers slid over his belt and lingered consideringly on the hardness pressing against his trousers, it was all he could do not to lose himself entirely. 

He turned frantic eyes on Cala and almost choked on his own breath to see an answering hardness tenting the front of Cala's robes. Cala's fingers stilled for a moment, then renewed their slow stroking, up and down the length of Beshelar's erection. The pressure was so light as to be barely discernible, or it should have been, but Beshelar felt each slow pass in every nerve of his body. “Dost want it?” asked Cala. “Dost want more of this?”

His chest was rising and falling so heavily, it was difficult even to get that one syllable out. “Yes.”

Cala's fingers stilled. “Then must tell me what thou wouldst have me do.” With a rustle of fabric, he slid to the ground by Beshelar's feet so that Beshelar's view was now of the crown of Cala's head, of his long, unruly queue lying pale against the blue robes. He was suddenly, absurdly aware that Cala had yet to remove his spectacles. Cala smiled. “For I would not make thy experience unsatisfactory, like those thou hadst in the pleasure houses.” 

His lips were dry and he wanted nothing more than to seize Cala by the roots of his hair and force his head to his groin, but to do so was out of the question. Instead, he husked, “We want you to take it...between your hands, and...”

“And...?”

“Play with it.”

Cala's smile widened, satisfied as an alley tomcat's, and then he brought his hands between Beshelar's thighs and did as he had been asked. Beshelar watched transfixed as Cala's fingers made short work of his buttons, then with a kiss of cool air Beshelar's phallus was free, bobbing dark and engorged in the dim light. 

“Mm,” Cala sighed. He raised a single finger and drew its carefully buffed nail along Beshelar's slit, beading pearly moisture in its wake. “Ah,” Beshelar moaned, fingers fisting in the sheets. His thighs quivered, tensed, it was all he could do to keep his feet on the floor as Cala's fingers continued their slow exploration up, down, digressing to trace circles along the skin of Beshelar's thighs or tease at his foreskin.

“Ah, ah,” Beshelar was moaning in earnest now, low and constant as his ears twisted every which way. It was an impossible feat that Cala asked of him, to remain motionless as Cala's adroit fingers teased and tested. Yet he knew he must or Cala would stop, and somehow that made it all the sweeter. 

So when Cala drew back with a faint scowl of dissatisfaction, he felt the injustice of it all the more keenly. “Why?” he gasped. “We have not, I have not—” The words tumbled over themselves; he barely knew what he said, only that he must convince Cala to continue.

“Is this all thou want'st? Only this?" A teasing flick of Cala's thumb against the base of his cockhead. “No wonder thy other partners lost interest in pleasing thee.”

“No, please, don't. We have—I have done all that thou asked. And I have never been so eager—”

“I tire of using my hands,” said Cala, with the elaborate patience of someone explaining something to a child. 

The floor dropped away from Beshelar's feet entirely. “Then please,” he whispered, at his wits' end. “Use thy tongue.”

“Like this?” asked Cala, and circled it around Beshelar's tip. He cried out. “Like this?” Cala asked again as he flicked it back and forth along the sensitive place behind his cockhead, and he swooned.

“Take it, please, into thy mouth, and let me hold thy head in my hands,” he begged, desperate to caress Cala's checks, his ears, to run his fingers through Cala's hair.

“No, not that,” said Cala, “not that last. There are _rules,_ Lieutenant Beshelar, and thou shouldst know that best of all.” And then he swallowed Beshelar down to the very base. Beshelar sobbed, with need, with relief, and could only watch and listen as Cala expertly licked and suckled. 

Because he could not touch, he imagined: what it would be like to stroke a thumb along Cala's swollen lips as they encircled his cock, what it would be like to take him by the nape of the neck and thrust into his mouth until completion. His hips were rocking back and forth upon the mattress, but it seemed Cala would at least allow him that. Cala's fingers were kneading into the muscles of his calves as he sucked, additional heady points of pleasure, and it would not be long. Oh, it had never felt this good on his own; why had he waited for this until now?

His cock popped free of Cala's mouth. Before he knew what he did, he surged toward Cala, hands outstretched and desperate. Cala leaned back, out of his grasp, then rose slowly to his feet. Cala was the taller of them. It was a fact of which Beshelar rarely took note, but he felt the difference keenly now as Cala stood over him, clothed as Beshelar was not, and with displeasure turning down his ears and the corners of his mouth. 

His first instinct was to apologise. But a soldier did not apologise but stood silently and awaited his reprimand, and for all that his body cried out for more of Cala's touch, what they did here was closer to the discipline of the proving grounds than the realm of Court or friendship. Cala's lips thinned. He curled his hands over Beshelar's shoulders and pressed him down, wordlessly, until he lay on his back atop the bed. 

The mattress dipped and creaked as Cala climbed atop to straddle him. Then he hitched one hand beneath his robe and began to pleasure himself as Beshelar watched. He thought he might go mad with it, looking on as Cala thrusted and bucked, riding his hand while Beshelar could do no more than imagine what took place beneath the bunching fabric.

Cala watched him with slitted, feverish eyes. “Hast done well,” he whispered. “Hast done very well.” The twist of Cala's hand slowed, and he reached out the other to stroke reverently along the ridged muscles of Beshelar's chest and torso. Then his rhythm changed, one hand moving slow and circular while the other hand teased and twisted each of Beshelar's nipples in turn. 

Beshelar shut his eyes. His head lolled on the pillow, the warmth flooding through him so lazily it was a moment before he registered the telltale ozone scent of magic. “But that is...” He tried to raise himself up on his elbows, but his limbs would not obey.

“Ah, yes,” said Cala, “Thou wouldst recognize it.” It was a battlefield maz, meant to still the spasms of wounded men until a physician could reach them. All soldiers had it cast upon them at least once, as part of their training. Cala's voice was faintly amused. “As canst see, it has other uses as well.” 

It was its own sort of torture, for the urge buck and writhe was still there, only now he lacked the distraction of trying to fight it. And he could still feel everything that Cala did to him with lips and mouth and fingers, but no matter how desperate his attempts to force his limbs to respond, they merely sprawled motionless upon the sheets. 

Cala had taken him into his mouth once more, tongue swirling around his cockhead, and Beshelar was ready to give himself over to it entirely when the sensation of a questing finger pulled him back from the edge of release. He cried out and gasped, and tried to crawl away, but of course he could not.

The finger stilled, and for moments the only sound in the room was their twinned panting. Beshelar licked his lips, thoughts stuttering as he sought to convince himself he had imagined it. _Cala, surely thou dost not intend..._ he thought. For there were marnei, and then there were the marnei who allowed themselves to be taken like women. Everyone knew the stories. But Beshelar had never thought he would ever find himself thus used. 

Surely Cala did not intend... But, _Hast already told him thou wouldst give him control,_ he thought. And this was not some painted youth from the lower districts, but Cala, to whom he entrusted his life and his honor every day, and who repaid him in kind. He was almost entirely certain that Cala would stop, if he were to give voice to his distress now. But then, what _would_ it be to wholly surrender himself to another? And if he could not bring himself to do it now, would he ever?

And so, he fought back his unease and said, “Why hast thou stopped?” and was pleased to hear only demand in his voice. For a moment more Cala did nothing and Beshelar imagined he felt Cala's gaze searching his face, but he kept his eyes shut and any hint of a tremor from his features. The mattress dipped as Cala shifted and resumed his explorations.

He had thought it might be painful; it was not. But it was discomfiting, to feel Cala's finger press its way into him, firm and coaxing. Cala began to slowly work it deeper within. He grimaced, and hid his face in the pillow lest Cala see it, but it was too late. Cala's hand stilled for a heartbeat, and then began to withdraw. “No!” he cried out. 

No one would have mistaken it for a cry of lust. But he clenched his jaw and held his ears level as though he had made no sound at all. After a moment Cala said softly, “Didst not learn, to calm the breath, during thy training? Mayst find it helpful, now.” He nodded, abashed and grateful to Cala for continuing in the face of his cowardice, and began to concentrate on drawing smooth, deep mouthfuls of air into his lungs as Cala's finger pressed into him once more. With the passage of time, the sensation of Cala's fingers within him, once unbearable, became merely foreign.

Eventually, their probing ceased and he heard the rustle of Cala's robe as he pulled it off. Beshelar opened his eyes at that, and sighed at the sight of Cala, nipples erect, cock erect, skin flushed and sweaty, kneeling between his thighs. Cala's eyes were fixed between his legs. He watched as Cala's hand crept up, as if unbidden, to fist around his cock. His own throbbed in sympathy. Then Cala shifted, paused, and thrust into Beshelar until he was sheathed completely within. “Aah,” Cala cried. 

Cala moved slowly at first, eyes not leaving his face. He held Cala's gaze, heedless of the strangeness of it all, daring Cala to continue even as he knew not what to think about what was happening to him. Cala shut his eyes, opened them, and withdrew. Then he entered Beshelar again, hips quivering, this time working himself inside slowly. Once more, he withdrew, and eased back in. And then again, now faster. The mattress began to creak. 

Cala's rhythm changed, to a pattern Beshelar recognized. He had heard it himself just one night past, issuing from behind the curtains of His Serenity's bed. He gasped, and would have clenched his hands in indignation, had the maz allowed it. _Thou darest,_ he thought, but when he opened his eyes to glare, it was to see Cala balanced upon his forearms above him, back arched, face slack, eyes closed. _Dost not even know where thou art,_ he thought. And then, _Let us remind you._

He began, softly at first, and then more loudly, to moan, as he had heard His Serenity moan, in time to this very rhythm. Cala's eyes snapped open, pupils blowing until they all but eclipsed his irises. “See,” he goaded through gritted teeth. “Canst make thee whimper too, and all without ever touching thee.” Cala's thrusting slowed at that, and something flickered in his eyes that sent ice down Beshelar's spine.

Cala's gaze lowered, eyelashes fluttering as he ground slow circles into Beshelar. His lips were moving, whispering things too low for Beshelar to hear, and Beshelar thought, _He can kill a man with a word._ Then he gasped and thrashed against the pillow as Cala teased a fingernail along the slit of his cock. He groaned aloud, for here was a pleasure he understood, and in counterpoint to the rhythm of Cala's thrusting it was heavenly. Cala's fingers tightened around Beshelar's waist.

But if Cala gripped him there, what was it that coiled around the shaft of his cock, lapped and probed at its tip? Cala was moaning now, low and constant, watching avidly as something else Beshelar could not see curled around his cock to join the first. He gasped and shuddered, with what emotion he knew not, and managed to prise his shoulders from the mattress. Cala's original maz was broken, but now he was held fast by the things that coiled around his arms and legs, writhed between his toes, tickled his thighs, lapped hungrily at his cockhead. 

Perhaps he should have feared, but he was too far gone for that. He gasped and strained against his bonds, but wherever he twisted, they followed, stroking and teasing as he pleaded and begged for it to stop, and for Cala to make them touch him “there—oh gods, yes, please, Cala, please, and _there._ ” 

“An couldst only see thyself,” gasped Cala, and his voice broke on the last syllable. Beshelar turned to look at him, glassy eyed, and one of the things that had been flicking across his nipples unfurled to stroke along his jaw. He turned and captured it with his mouth, and as he did so it swelled and stiffened, and he ran his tongue along its tip, smooth and blunt as a cockhead. “Aah,” Cala cried.

He bobbed his head along its length and Cala's hands were like a vise around his waist as his hips snapped back and forth, riding Beshelar as though he were naught but a lowborn harlot. Tremors were building within him, radiating out from the base of his spine as he moaned, as Cala moaned, as he begged Cala for more of it. The thing in his mouth had wound itself around his neck and it was tensing, constricting, readying for release and he could not breathe. “Oh,” he gasped, “Oh, yes, please, Cala,” but what came out were no longer words at all and then he sobbed and shuddered and knew nothing else. 

It was mid-afternoon when Beshelar woke, and raised himself slowly onto one arm. Beside him, Cala still slumbered. In repose, his face had lost the commanding aspect it had held earlier. Beshelar watched him in silence for a moment, and then slid his legs over the edge of the bed and winced. He was alarmingly, viciously sore. But then, it was not so different from the soreness that followed a long session of drilling, and after a moment's consideration he decided that the sensation of sated fatigue was no different at all. He rose, drew the covers back over Cala's bony shoulders, and went to heat the water for a bath.

**Author's Note:**

> Dear Extra Penguin--thank you for a prompt filled with so many lovely things to work with, and for the chance to write these two characters enjoying themselves. I hope you enjoy reading it!


End file.
